Jumping Ship
by muaaimoi
Summary: Penny has a pregnancy test turn positive. This is one of those Lenny/Shamy to Shenny fics. Enjoy.


Penny drives herself to the clinic. She doesn't have to go alone, she knows a few girls who would return the favor with no fuss. She's pretty sure Bernadette would have been happy to keep her company, and in all the time she's known her, Amy has always jumped at the chance of having any kind of face time with Penny. There are plenty of people she could call, but she thinks about the positive pregnancy test in her trash can, and doesn't.

She's not proud of it. She wouldn't use protection if she wanted to be pregnant. So she signs in, waits for her turn, reads a trashy magazine and distracts herself from what's to come. No one wants to get an abortion, Penny knows. But she doesn't want to be pregnant. Not with her career in the gutter, not going to school part time and barely surviving day to day on the pittance she makes as a waitress. Not having been faithful and knowing it's Leonard's.

She doesn't want kids with Leonard. She tries to ignore it most of the time. Doesn't think about their future too hard, if she's honest. She can't picture Leonard as a father, as a husband. Or rather, she can picture it too well, trying his hardest and getting it all wrong. She doesn't blame Leonard for being the way he is. When she thinks about what kind of mother Beverly is, and Leonard's horror stories from his childhood, she's mostly impressed he's not worse. She just can't help but pity anyone who'd actually marry the guy.

He'd have no clue how to be a father. Would have no idea how to work as a husband. Penny knows she's the type to wear the pants in any relationship, she'd be the one to lay down the law, and set the rules. But she also knows marriage is a partnership. She could raise kids pretty much by herself if she had to, but she doesn't want to do it alone.

Besides-she's not ready to be a mom. Not ready for the monumental shift in her life, to always put someone else before herself. Penny wants to give her children the world, wants to be able to take trips abroad, afford every conceivable lesson they would ever want to take. Karate, guitar, ballet, baseball, soccer, the works, and then some. She can't do that from where she's standing. If she kept the baby, her best bet would have been to marry Leonard. And she just can't condemn any kid to a father like that.

Oh sure he'd try, but it's not necessarily about trying. It's about love. And the guy who doesn't actually like his best friend, and doesn't understand that it's messed up to take advantage of your girlfriends guilt over your terrible childhood, isn't someone she wants to raise kids with. Leonard doesn't know how to love someone, doesn't know how to be there when it really counts, and she's tried, but there's no way to explain it to him without his stupid inferiority/superiority complex rearing it's stupid head. She may have felt like shit over it for a while there, but there was no denying that Beverly knew what she was talking about in her book. Leonard did hate himself, how that worked while he still considered himself better than everyone else was a mystery to Penny.

So while she's not happy that she wasn't safe enough when it came to sex, and that she needed an abortion of all things-she doesn't regret it. What she does regret is driving herself when she runs into Howard and Raj whispering furiously at each other in the parking lot. She sees it the moment they realize it's her. And she knows, deep in her gut, that she is never going to hear the end of it when they tell Leonard. Doesn't bother going up to them, asking what in the hell they were doing at planned parenthood of all places, or asking them not to tell. Secrets never last in their group anyway.

She gets in her car and starts driving home. Not five minutes later, Leonard is blowing up her phone. She doesn't bother answering it. She's sure he's gonna meet her at the building door. She make's a pit stop at the liquor store. She's going to need it if she's going to have this conversation.

**x**

**So can you guys tell I'm pro-choice? Next chapters gonna be fun methinks. It's one of those fic tropes that having a baby will magically fix everything, and it's misogynistic as hell in most cases. Not that they can't be cute or whatever, but it's been fun to flip it. You don't see abortions happening often, so I figured I'd take a whack at it. Hope you guys like it :) **


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